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im working on lots of rocky hills with styrofoam and im wondering if i should use plaster to add texture to the rock.

Cheap plaster is very fragile and probably will chip after the first careless gamer uses it.
Dental plaster is probably too expensive.
Either way it is heavy and cold and difficult to transport. That's why I don't use Hirst products either.

Your talking about covering pink foam with plaster, rather than making rocks from plaster?

Wall Spackle over pink foam might work best. It will pick up the basic out line of the pink. Then when dry, can be sanded or carved. Durability is moderate - the Spackle has a tenancy to crack or flake if abused.

If you want a fast coat over pink foam, something like Durhams Water putty (plaster) is strong like dental plaster and available in small containers at the local hardware store. Add the Durhams to your base coat paint for both good paint coverage, protection and texture.

Kroothawk wrote:Cheap plaster is very fragile and probably will chip after the first careless gamer uses it.
Dental plaster is probably too expensive.
Either way it is heavy and cold and difficult to transport. That's why I don't use Hirst products either.

Excalibur is what I've always used. Comes in a 50lb box direct ordered from Clint Sales (Cindy@clintsales.com) one of the premier casting plasters.

Regular plaster of paris is 5,000 psi compression strength and will chip fairly easily.
Hydrocal is around 8,000 psi and is more durable.
Merlin's Magic is around 14,000 psi and is even more durable yet.
Excalibur and Die-Keen are 18,000 psi and dry so hard it's almost like a ceramic material.

If it's the cheap white beaded sytro, then a bit of wood filler is a good way to add texture or hide the texture of the styro. Filler tends to be stronger than plaster of paris, but not is still britlle. Likewise, white styro is not the toughest material, so I recommend sealing it really well. Possible sealers would be a few coats of watered-down PVA or minwax polyshades.

Basing the hills on a piece of hardboard will help to protect the edges of the piece which are among the most fragile.

For my hills, I'm using cheap styro, based on pieces of fibreboard from IKEA (the stuff at the back of cabinets and bookcases) covered with wood filler, painted, then coated in a brushed layer of minwax polyshades (The same stuff I use to dip figures) and then I add a bit of drybrush and spray with a matte finsh to cut the shine and add another layer of protection.

What I have then is a hill that's essentially covered in a layer of plastic.They're not indestrutible, but they're alot tougher an unbased, not-coated hill.

I would suggest using textured spray paint.

Paint on (DO NOT use spray paint) a neutral color, to seal the styrofoam. Make sure you don't miss any spots.

Then just spray it with the textured spray paint. I have seen some terrain with this stuff used, and it looks really good, plus its easy. Just make sure you under coat the styrofoam, because spray paint makes styro melt and bubble. Sounds a lot easier to me than plaster.

That's a great suggestion also. You can use leftover house paint (ask around someone will have some in a whitish color to give you) to seal the styro and then spray over. Both latex housepaint and spray paint have a bit of flexibility to them so rather than relying on a hard covering, they will resist breakage by flexing.

I used white housepaint and sandstone textured spraypaint for my gaming table surface and it looks quite good.

Two important points to remember though:

-Make sure though that the house paint completely covers the beady texture of the styro, because depending on the spray, it can take alot of spray to hide texture.
- I still strongly recommend a hard base for styrofoam terrain.

IF you plan on using plaster, you can always use the flexible kind. It's mixed with some latex or caulking agent that makes it bend. I use it to texture my wire trees and it doesn't come off even if I bend the tree.